Who Are You Working For?

A question that has been coming to me is: Am I working for God or is God working for me? I would ask you who read this the same question. Are you working for God or is God working for you? I know that some of you will say it is both, but what comes first; working for God or God working for us?

When we think of someone working for us we think in terms of employee and employer and it is difficult for us to think that God is our employee if God is working for us.

It says in Isaiah 64:4 “For from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God besides thee, who worketh for him that waiteth for him.” (ASV)

What we have here is what we call a “Patron Client” and patron is where we get the word for father. For example, we do hire people who, in one sense, will ‘boss’ us. Think of lawyers. We hire them to give us advice and tell us what to do. Right? The same is true with accountants, etc. We do not hire God in the secular sense, but the key word is the word ‘wait.’ We are waiting for advice, instruction on what to do, where to go, etc. I have found that one of the hardest things in the world for most of us is to wait. We want it and we want it now, seems to be the culture that we have and grew up with. One of the great lacks in our character is patience and it is the one thing that is necessary in order to be used of God.

However, when we wait it does not mean that we are not actively engaged. When we wait we are showing to the Father that we love Him; we are showing to Him that we honor and worship Him; we are showing to the Father that we are relying on Him. It is also bringing out that we have faith in Him. We know “without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing (unto him); for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and (that) he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.” Hebrews 11:6

How often when we are in a waiting situation that we seem to think that it is a futile time, or wasted time and we sense that nothing is being accomplished. However, what we forget is that during this waiting time – God is working for you. He is doing things that we do not see, nor apprehend with the physical senses, but He is working out His plan and purpose.

God in the meantime is working on our behalf in showing His love and mercy. He is supporting us in ways that perhaps we do not fully see or understand. How many times He has protected us without us even noticing it; how His grace has been poured out on us. Perhaps we need to spend more time in studying about the ‘grace of God.’

So, God works for those who wait on Him. When we wait on Him, He is the One that will give wisdom, insight and understanding in what to do. When Joshua and the Children of Israel entered the Promise Land the first battle was the battle of Jericho. God gave them the plan and they had victory, but what came next was Ai. Joshua sent spies to spy out Ai and they came back and said: “Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; make not all the people to toil thither; for they are but few.” Joshua 7:3

We see that Joshua did not wait for God, but after the great victory of Jericho, he and the people assumed what the spies said. They did not know about the “sin of Achan,” but if Joshua had waited on God he would have known, but he found out the hard way.

King David is another example that we can learn from. When the Philistines heard that they had anointed David as king they assembled in the valley of Rephaim for battle. We read that David inquired of the Lord (he waited for instructions) and God told him what to do: “Jehovah said unto David, ‘Go up; for I will certainly deliver the Philistines into thy hand.’” 2 Samuel 5:19

We see that later the Philistines gathered again together for battle, but David did not assume that the same tactic would work for this time, but again inquired of the Lord and God gave Him instructions. “And when David inquired of Jehovah, he said, ‘Thou shalt not go up: make a circuit behind them, and come upon them over against the mulberry-trees. And it shall be, when thou hearest the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then is Jehovah gone out before thee to smite the host of the Philistines.’ And David did so, as Jehovah commanded him, and he smote the Philistines from Geba until thou come to Gezer.” (Samuel 5:23-25) What a victory!